


Incompetent Proposal

by youjik33



Category: Megamind (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5463128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youjik33/pseuds/youjik33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megamind attempts a grand romantic gesture. Things don't go entirely according to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incompetent Proposal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ectotherm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectotherm/gifts).



"Roxanne Ritchie." Megamind drew himself up to his full (if not exactly impressive) height. "It's been two years since we first worked together to save the city from a threat I created entirely by accident." He cleared his throat. "Since then, we've both accomplished great things. I earned that Nobel Prize for my work developing robotic prosthetics. You earned that Pulitzer for your in-depth series on prison reform. Through it all, we've supported each other, elevated each other, and I don't think either of us could have been quite as successful on our own. And that's why, Roxanne --" he dropped to one knee at this – "I would be honored if you would join me in holy matrimmony."

"Uh. It's pronounced 'matrimony', sir," Minion said.

"Ma-tri-moh-nee," he repeated, slowly. "That doesn't make any sense, what is wrong with the English language?" Megamind stood, brushing dust off his knees. "Still, up until that point it sounded pretty good, right?"

"Perfect, sir."

"I've got a delectable picnic lunch packed – thank you for finding that peanut butter brownie recipe, by the way, Minion--"

"Glad to be of service, sir!"

"I've picked a lovely secluded spot in the bluffs, with a seaside view, and I nudged the rainclouds out of the way with a little judicious application of application of my Rain-B-Gone ray. I've got an elegant but tasteful diamond ring I made myself in a hyper-compression chamber, because I know how Roxanne feels about blood diamonds." He whipped it out of its velvet-lined box just long enough to admire the way it sparkled in the sunlight. "And the romantic music is all queued up – you did queue the romantic music, right, Minion?"

"Of course, sir, you can count on me. And if I may say so, sir, you have no reason to be nervous. Roxanne is crazy about you, there's no way she won't say yes."

"Minion, if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that one should never make any assumptions, especially about Roxanne Ritchie." He straightened the collar of his cape for what seemed like the thousandth time, and checked his watch. Things were perfectly on schedule. "Brainbots, assemble!" The bots swarmed into formation, hovering in neat rows. For the occasion, Megamind had given them a slight redesign, fitting them with white feathered wings, to mimic doves – not real feathers, of course, but lightweight polymer. Much more animal-friendly than letting a flock of live, tame doves loose to starve to death in the wild.

Megamind looked over the rows of spotless white, down at his own clothing, at the neatly packed picnic basket Minion had tucked under his arm. Everything seemed in order. His heart was pounding, probably from excitement, because he knew he had nothing to be nervous about.

"All right!" he barked. "Move out! Operation: Perfect Proposal begins now!"

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

The grass was green, a soft breeze was rustling the leaves in the treetops, songbirds were chirping, and the sky was as cloudless and blue as he'd planned. Roxanne herself looked radiant in a yellow sundress.

"What's the occasion?" she asked as Megamind unpacked the basket, pouring them each a glass of red wine.

"You really don't remember? It's our two-year anniversary."

She took a sip of wine, looking perplexed. "How are you defining 'anniversary', exactly?"

"It's the anniversary of our first date where you actually knew I was me."

"That makes sense." The smiled, and even after all this time it was enough to get his heart racing. "You're awfully sentimental, sometimes. I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

Lunch was simple but delicious, but Megamind had a hard time concentrating on it, what with the way his stomach was twisting itself into knots. He drank more than his share of the wine, but Roxanne laughed off his apology. "You okay, babe? You seem a little tense. You're not working on any dangerous experiments you haven't told me about, are you?"

"No, of course not. I don't hide things from you any more. Everything's more fun when we're in it together, anyway."

"Remember when that giant mutant sewer rat attacked the orphanage?" Roxanne said, voice heavy with nostalgia.

"And you valiantly distracted it with a cheese wheel while I worked on the anti-mutagen. That was just about the bravest thing I've ever seen."

"Well, I could only focus on the cheese because you and Minion had already gotten the children to safety. It was almost enough to make me forget you'd mutated the rat in the first place."

"Hey, I told you, that was an unforseen side effect of a completely legitimate experiment. Um, thanks for downplaying that part in the news coverage."

"Hey, that's what I'm here for," she said with a grin.

He realized in the nick of time that if he went in for a kiss now, he would get distracted from his plan. Instead, Megamind jumped to his feet, while surreptiously pushing the button on his watch that would transmit the go-ahead signal to Minion.

"Roxanne," he said. "We've had some amazing times together, and today, I have something important to tell you. I may not be much in the way of speeches-"

She raised her eyebrows at this, and he chose to ignore her incredulity.

"-so allow me to let the dulcet voice of Minnie Riperton explain exactly how I feel about you."

The brainbots carrying the stereo system floated into view above the cliffside, right on cue, and from the speakers issued forth --

_"HIGHWAY TO HELL! I'M ON THE HIGHWAY TO HELL!"_

"Minion! You had _one job_!"

"Sorry, sir!" Minion's voice said over the intercom at Megamind's wrist. "I guess I mixed up the tapes again."

Roxanne, for her part, was clearly holding in a laugh. At least she seemed amused. Megamind drew in a deep breath and gathered his composure. All right, so maybe things weren't going perfectly, but that just meant they had another story to laugh about later.

"Roxanne," he tried again. He'd lost his place in his carefully prepared speech; he didn't have Minnie Riperton to sing it for him, so he decided he'd just say it himself. "Roxanne, loving you is easy, 'cause you're beautiful."

"Aww," she said.

He felt himself blush, but kept on track. "My love for you refuses to be contained. It expands endlessly, like the very universe itself!"

He struck a pose, pointing dramatically toward the heavens. At this point, the flock of winged brainbots was supposed to surge up behind him, filling the sky. They didn't come. After a second he turned to look over his shoulder. About a half dozen were milling about, bumping softly against each other like drunk bumblebees.

"Minion!" he hissed into the comm. "What happened to the brainbots?"

"Uh, well, apparently the wings and feathers confused them, and most of them seem to have joined a migrating flock of pelicans. They're miles down the coast by now."

Megamind closed his eyes, counted backwards from ten, and reset his dramatic pose. If he just moved ahead to the next part of the proposal, something was bound to go right eventually.

"My love for you burns like a--"

"Fire!" Roxanne shrieked.

Because of course the brainbot that had stuck around to light the tiki torches Megamind had placed around the picnic blanket had terrible aim, and set Roxanne's sundress on fire.

She had the presence of mind to stop, drop, and roll. Minion abandoned his post in the trees to douse her with the fire extinguisher built into one of his robotic arms.

"Are you all right?" Megamind asked as he helped her sit up. Her hair was a mess and her bangs just a little bit singed, and there was soot on the hem of her dress.

"Yeah, fine," she said. "All in one piece. I don't think we can say the same for the picnic."

The last of the wine was currently spreading a crimson stain across the checkered blanket, and Minion's peanut butter brownies were scattered across the grass. For a half a second Megamind considered ignoring this and just plowing ahead, until he realized that the ring was being carried by one of the brainbots. One of the currently migrating brainbots.

"I'm sorry, Roxanne," he said. "So, so so sorry. A hundred thousand times sorry."

"Hey, it's all right, I know it was an accident." He knew she meant the words, but he could also see the tightness in her smile. She was trying very hard not to lose her patience.

"Do you want me to take you home?" he asked quietly.

She glanced over at the Spiderbot, which had been lounging in the grass a few hundred yards off. Sensing her attention it sprang up onto its pointed mechanical legs, eager to be of use.

"Uh, that's all right. I'll just drive myself back. I should probably have a shower and change."

"Should I call you later?"

"Yeah, okay. Call me."

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

The clouds that the Rain-B-Gone ray had pushed out to sea came rolling back in later that evening, falling in dismal sheets. Occasionally a stray drop would leak through the boards in the roof and land with a soft plunk.

The problem with having friends was that Megamind's secret lair wasn't so secret any more. If he really wanted to be alone, he had to find new places to hide. Currently he was in an old treehouse, abandoned by the kids who had built it years before. He had his cell phone on, but Roxanne still hadn't called. Maybe she was angry. She'd usually had patience with his screwups before, but he'd never set her on fire accidentally before.

He sighed, listening to the sound of the rain. It was really quite soothing. A drop fell from the ceiling and landed on his nose.

There was a soft knock, like someone rapping against the treehouse's wooden floor.

"...who's there?" he called. As far as he knew the only person who knew about this place was Minion, who should also know better than to bother him when he was brooding.

"It's me," a familiar voice answered. "I wanted to see if you were okay."

Megamind heaved a sigh and pulled the trap door in the floor open.

Metro Man's broad shoulders barely fit through as he hauled himself inside. In the years since his "death", he'd grown a short-cropped beard and taken to wearing square-framed glasses with plain glass instead of lenses; a brilliant disguise, Megamind thought. Nobody would look at the bearded, bespectacled, flannel-shirt-and-jeans-wearing man before him and think anything closer to the truth than "Hey, that guy kind of looks like Metro Man, if he were still alive and possibly a lumberjack."

"How'd you know I was here?" Megamind asked, sliding over to make room for his friend.

"X-ray vision, remember?" Metro Man said. "Minion told me what happened. I thought you might want some cheering up."

"What I wanted was to sit here drowning in my endless misery. But I guess we can't always get what we want."

"Oh, c'mon!" Metro Man laughed, clapping him on the shoulder, and Megamind winced. "I've seen you bounce back from worse failures than this. How many times did I kick your butt, and did you ever give up?"

"That was different! That's just what we did. It was just our thing. And I wasn't madly in love with you. Er, no offense, I do truly appreciate our friendship."

"None taken," Metro Man said cheerily. "Look, if Roxanne didn't really want to be with you, she would have dumped you a long time ago. She's already seen you at your worst."

"I guess that's true." He sighed. "But even so, I lost the ring."

"You think Roxanne really needs jewelry to be happy?"

"No, but-- can you stop being right about everything for just a minute? It's terribly emasculating."

"Sorry." They lapsed into silence for a moment before Metro Man cleared his throat, shifted, and pulled something out of his pocket. "...did you want this anyway?"

Megamind gaped at the box. He opened it in disbelief; the ring was there, nestled comfortably in the velvet lining. "How in the world--"

"I had to search the coast from here to Hilton Head, but I finally tracked down the brainbot that took off with it."

"I thought you weren't using your powers any more."

"I'm officially out of the superhero business. But this was a favor for a friend."

Megamind couldn't help himself – he threw himself at Metro Man and hugged him as tightly as he could, even though his arms barely fit around the other man's broad shoulders. "I owe you one," he said. "More than one. I owe you, like, twelve."

"Just let me sing at the wedding," Metro Man said with a chuckle, "and we'll call it even."

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

It was still raining when he pulled the car (currently visible) up to the curb in front of Roxanne's apartment building, but he barely even noticed. The elevator felt like it took hours, and he bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet, patting the ring box through the lining of his cape and humming along to a Muzak version of "Dancing Queen".

Roxanne answered the door wearing a t-shirt and gray sweatpants.

"I'm so glad you came," she said, ushering him inside. "I was going to call you but my phone died and I couldn't find the charger. It's just one thing after another today, huh?"

"I have something I have to say," he said. "Something important."

"No, wait," she said. "Can I go first?" She pushed on without waiting for an actual answer. "I know you were trying to pull off a big romantic gesture today. And I want you to know that even though I was kind of upset about my dress getting ruined, I'm not angry at you. Because I know you were trying, and that it's not always your fault that things get screwed up, and that even when it is, you keep trying to fix it."She paused, took a deep breath. "That's what I love most about you – that you try so hard, over and over again, even though you constantly fail."

"I don't know about _constantly_ ," he interjected.

"Look, this might be a little unorthodox, and I know you usually prefer dramatic flair, but we've been together for a long time. We've had ups and downs that would make some people motion sick. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. So what I'm getting at is... Megamind, will you marry me?"

He was dumbfounded. Standing in her living room, with messy hair and lounge clothes, Roxanne had never looked more beautiful. It took him a second to compose himself enough to say "yes", but he managed it.

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

"They grow up so fast," Minion said, watching the car lift off theground on its newly-installed hoverjets. The "Just Married" banner hanging from its back bumper waved in the breeze as it zoomed off over the trees. The comment was followed by what may have been a sniffle, but Metro Man politely ignored it.

"I knew those crazy kids would work it out," he said. "What are you going to do while they're on their honeymoon?"

"I don't know. The lair needs a good spring cleaning, but I'm going to have a lot of free time on my fins."

"Stan's Tavern does open mic nights on Tuesday, you should come."

"Ooh!" Minion said, perking up. "Do they allow spoken-word poetry?"

"Sure," Metro Man said. "You show 'em what you've got, friend."

Out over the bay the car's invisibility booster kicked in, and in the distance a flock of winged brainbots flew in a V across the setting sun.

 


End file.
